Jacob Burying Laban's Images

According to the Biblical text, Jacob's sons avenged their sister Dinah, who had been dishonoured by the son of the ruler of Shechem, by sacking the city and killing all its inhabitants and taking the strange gods together with all other property. Jacob was displeased with the action of Simeon and Levi and ordered his retainers to throw out the idols and cleanse themselves. "And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem" (Genesis 35, 4). The choice of this rather rare subject, which was repeated several times in Bourdon's work, is possibly linked to the artist's faith. Montpelier, his native city, was a bastion of Protestant faith in the south of France and was taken by royal troops during the renewed persecution of Huguenots; many inhabitants left the city. Bourdon probably saw in the history of Jacob an analogy with his own situation and the situation of his fellow believers. The decision to foreswear strange gods and erect an altar to "God, Who heard me on my day of need" must have suited the mood of Protestants, who staunchly preserved their faith amidst the Catholic majority. In the painting the influence of works by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione is noticeable, but at the same time the artist displays a burgeoning attraction to the painting of Poussin, as we see first of all in the division of the composition into foreground and background and in the drawing of two female figures in the lower right corner of the painting.. This allows us to date the work to the first half of the 1640s.